Settlement Pattern Transition from the Middle Formative to the Classic in Southern Mesoamerica and the Establishment of Veracruz and Maya Spheres through the Analysis of Low-Resolution Lidar

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper examines the settlement patterns transition from the Middle Formative to the Classic period through a low-resolution lidar analysis in Southern Mesoamerica, over a 25 km2 area. Based on previous lidar research carried out by the Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project (MUAP), in 2022 I did a low-resolution lidar analysis with a dataset from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), an open-access resource from the Mexican government. The initial goal was to find the total extent of early ceremonial complexes outside the Maya and Olmec regions and understand the social dynamics. However, the lack of early ceremonial complexes in Central Veracruz and Oaxaca showed that the distribution was probably restricted to the Isthmian interaction sphere (Gulf Coast, Central Chiapas, and southern Pacific Coast). Furthermore, the results from my analysis demonstrate that in the transition between periods the settlement pattern changed with the establishment of Veracruz and Maya spheres. We argue that intensive interregional interactions and cultural and ecological factors might have played a role in this transition.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38717.0